Google Sets Big Belgian Investment

Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo hasn’t had much to be cheerful about recently. His social media streams contain a succession of sympathetic outpourings, regrets, and heartfelt words of support for those being laid off at employers as diverse as Caterpillar, Ford, and Arcelor.

But today he’s feeling lucky. Belgium’s search for investment has paid off, with internet giant Google expanding its Belgian data center, just outside Mons – Mr. Di Rupo’s hometown, where he was mayor until becoming PM, and to which he returns every summer to watch grown men poke a giant home-made dragon with lances (yes, really).

Google said it is investing €300 million in the expansion, and that the facility will be one of the most energy efficient data centers in the world, using around 50% less energy than typical data centers.

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“Google’s significant investment shows that Belgium is a key business destination, including for new technologies,” said Elio Di Rupo, Belgian Prime Minister. “Although we’re going through difficult economic times, we keep attracting major investments from international companies.”

It’s not their only project in the region. At the other end of the technological spectrum, it works with the Mundaneum there, a sort of paper-Internet set up in 1910 in the brave new world of index cards. As well as showcasing the treasure trove of early 20th-century knowledge, its temporary exhibitions include Belgian communist posters.

The data center is a rather different proposition, including an evaporative cooling system that draws “grey water” from a nearby industrial canal–something Wallonia, once the industrial powerhouse of Belgium, isn’t short of.

“Belgium enjoys a unique position in the heart of Europe, well-developed infrastructure and a high-quality and productive workforce,” Mr. Di Rupo added. He’ll hope, with growth forecast to stagnate and the European Commission breathing down his bow-tied neck, that the good luck continues.

About Real Time Brussels

The Wall Street Journal’s Brussels blog is produced by the Brussels bureau of The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires. The bureau has been headed since 2009 by Stephen Fidler, who was previously a correspondent and editor for the Financial Times and Reuters. Also posting regularly: Matthew Dalton, Viktoria Dendrinou, Tom Fairless, Naftali Bendavid, Laurence Norman, Gabriele Steinhauser and Valentina Pop.